Today was Stephanie’s turn to go to Kingston … just like work: leave here at 7:30 AM and back by 4:00 PM.

The Spinal Tap didn’t go well at all today. Its usually a 5 minute procedure where they insert the needle, drip about 10 drops of fluid out, and then inject some chemotherapy drugs (ARC in this case). Unfortunately this time it took 45 minutes and 4 pokes. They couldn’t get the needle in quite right the first time to get a flow of fluid so they had to poke again and again and again. Of course after the first missed poke, Stephanie started screaming and moving which just made it worse until they were finally able to get it on the fourth poke.

After her required one hour of lying with her head lower than her feet, however, she was back to her old self, albeit quite tired out by the whole ordeal.

The trip back to Trenton was without throwing up this time (last two times had Stephanie throwing up for three hours non-stop after the Spinal Tap). We had arranged that she recieve Ondansatron – a stronger form of Gravol, before the Spinal Tap this time. It seems that it worked. Talk about expensive though, at $18 dollars a pill, we were required to give her a dose of one and one-half pills this evening and another dose tomorrow.

Talked to our doctor about what the next phase is (as today’s Spinal Tap was the last treatment of the CNS Prophylaxis phase). The next phase that Stephanie will under go is called Interim Maintenance Phase. Note that this is not the “long-term” maintenance phase that continues until the end of the 3 year treatment period – that comes later, after a Reinduction phase. Just the same, this upcoming Interim Maintenance phase is fairly relaxed with a Methotrexate (via IV) session every two weeks at the clinic (ie, she doesn’t have to be admitted).

Stephanie had no problems falling asleep tonight – she was exhausted.